Atlanta and Southeast US Cellular/Wireless Guide
Last Updated, August, 2005

Quick Ratings

(typical ABCDF grading scale.  Ratings are subjective.  Coverage ratings consider both network quality and geographic coverage, with a slight nod given toward the latter.  Data ratings balance speed, reliability, and price, and take into accounts gaps in data coverage; for WAP offerings, the breadth of content is also considered.  Customer service ratings are a combination of my personal experience with the carriers and the number of complaints I hear from friends and acquaintances and the relative reputation on the carriers on cell-phone forums like Wireless Advisor and HowardForums.  I do not even attempt to rate pricing as pricing is somewhat volatile and what might be most cost-effective for one person might not be for another.  That said, T-Mobile and Metro PCS tend to be price leaders, while Cingular and Verizon tend to be on the expensive side; Sprint is not nearly as aggressive on price than they used to be, while Nextel is more aggressive than they used to be.)

Details of Individual Carriers

Cingular Wireless

Claim to fame:  Rollover minutes

Coverage:  Generally good, although Cingular continues to suffer from limited coverage in some rural areas in the South (including southeast Tennessee and western North Carolina) and West.

• Atlanta - generally very good
• Southeast - fair; strong in KY, AL, MS, LA, and western TN but very weak in rural areas of eastern TN, southern GA and AL, and western NC; Cingular is improving coverage south GA/AL and northeast TN (Claiborne County, Mountain City, etc.) but continues to ignore parts of east TN (especially areas between Chattanooga and Knoxville such as Decatur, Spring City, the Copper Basin area, etc. -- areas Cingular has ignored for the past decade) as well as large areas of southwestern NC (Cherokee, Murphy, etc.)
• National - good, although somewhat limited coverage in the West.  Expanded coverage (on par with Sprint and Verizon) is available with use of the older Nokia 6340i or Sony Ericsson T62u "GAIT" phones; Cingular no longer sells these phones but they are still supported and can be found on eBay.
• Caribbean:  By far the best; extensive roaming dates back from the BellSouth Mobility days.  A GAIT phone (see above) is needed for maximum coverage.
• Rest of the world:  Good, but rather expensive; Cingular customer service is generally clueless on international issues

Choice of phones:  Good, and basically limitless thanks to use of GSM

Customer service:  Fair -- Cingular CS has limited hours compared to the competition, and complaints about poor CS are somewhat common.

Data:  Cingular uses GSM CSD (for WAP on some older phones and the 6340i), GPRS, EDGE, and in some markets (not Atlanta...yet anyway) UMTS.

• WAP/phone-based data:  Good, but a bit expensive
• PDA data:  Good, but expensive
• Tethered data:  Good, but expensive

Metro PCS

Claim to fame:  Unlimited minutes for a flat rate

Coverage:  Weak and very limited; local coverage only

• Atlanta - weakest coverage of all carriers (but to their credit has improved over the past year or so); doesn't serve some outer suburbs like Peachtree City, Canton, etc., let alone the exurbs or mountain towns
• Southeast - n/a
• National - n/a
• Caribbean - n/a
• Rest of the world - n/a

Choice of phones:  Very limited, mostly lower-end phones

Customer service:  Poor -- highly automated, difficult to reach a person (but then again, given Metro's pricing model there's often no need to talk to a person).

Data:  Metro PCS uses 1XRTT.  Data services are extremely limited and rudimentary compared to other carriers; Metro PCS offers picture messaging and application downloads but nothing else.

Nextel

Claim to fame:  Push-to-talk (Direct Connect)

Coverage:  Good, but a bit fragile in some densely populated urban areas, and very limited rural coverage

• Atlanta - generally solid coverage, but has longstanding issues in parts of Dunwoody, Buckhead, and the airport area
• Southeast  - generally solid, but has some odd coverage gaps (for instance, there's a hole in coverage along I-65 north of Birmingham through Blount County, AL, an area that all other carriers serve with no issues, and Nextel didn't serve Statesboro, GA or Asheville, NC until last year), and network congestion issues in parts of NYC, L.A., and other dense cities; very limited rural coverage
• National - OK; somewhat limited compared to other carriers because of lack of roaming ability
• Caribbean - no coverage
• Rest of the world - Regular Nextel phones can be used in a handful of other countries; such as Israel; Nextel also supports GSM (SIM) roaming, which works but is very expensive, and Nextel has fewer roaming agreements than most other carriers 

Choice of phones:  Somewhat limited; few high-end phones, no PDAs aside from BlackBerry

Customer service:  Good

Data:  Nextel uses iDEN packet data.

• WAP/phone-based data:  Very good, but showing its age, and on the expensive side for what you get
• PDA data:  Limited to BlackBerry service, but it's reliable
• Tethered data:  Nextel offers a tethered data service but it's extremely slow (and rather expensive); not recommended

Sprint PCS

Claim to fame:  "Largest all-digital network"

Coverage:  uneven; very strong in some regions but weak in others (unfortunately, including Atlanta); much more "fragile" coverage than most other carriers; strong rural coverage (although mostly off-network)

• Atlanta:  weak, uneven, and variable; tends to have far more issues in residential areas than other carriers, and coverage in some areas fluctuates based on the time of day (poor during weekday rush hours and evenings but good at other times); Sprint has a history of having network congestion issues in the Atlanta area
• Southeast:  extensive rural coverage; coverage in Southeastern cities other than Atlanta tends to be good
• National:  uneven in urban areas (some markets are very good but others are very bad); extremely strong rural coverage (not only does Sprint have a significant amount of on-network rural coverage, but Sprint has roaming agreements with numerous rural carriers and actually has slightly MORE rural coverage than Verizon because of it 
• Caribbean:  OK, nothing special
• Rest of the world:  Regular Sprint phones can be used in a handful of countries, such as New Zealand; Sprint offers a GSM roaming option but it is extremely expensive.

Choice of phones:  Good, but has a bias toward Korean makes; some major manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola) are poorly represented or not at all; Sprint phones tend to put an emphasis on "frills" and data features and not so much on voice performance -- phones seem to make or break experiences with Sprint much more often than with other carriers

Customer service:  Fair but improving; Sprint has been widely maligned for offshoring customer service and having poor service overall, but has taken efforts to significantly improve the quality of customer service

Data:  Sprint uses 1XRTT and is moving toward EV-DO.

• WAP/phone-based data:  Excellent; best in class
• PDA data:  Excellent
• Tethered data:  Good, but by far the most expensive (mostly because Sprint doesn't offer an "unlimited" data plan except to some business accounts)

T-Mobile

Claim to fame: "get more"

Coverage:  Generally good, but limited rural coverage

• Atlanta:  good; few capacity issues; some issues in residential areas but nothing significant; only carrier to serve underground portions of MARTA (actually, Cingular does too -- but only for customers with older TDMA or GAIT phones, not current GSM phones)
• Southeast:  generally good, but rather limited in rural areas; has no native service in northeast TN (Knoxville, Tri-Cities) or the Carolinas (other than Aiken and Hilton Head, SC and Elizabeth City; NC) and uses SunCom's and Cingular's networks in these areas at no extra charge
• National:  generally good, although limited (and data sometimes doesn't work) in rural areas -- but rural coverage is increasing thanks to new roaming agreements
• Caribbean:  OK
• Rest of the world:  best among US carriers -- wide-ranging roaming agreements, and usually slightly cheaper than other carriers (although local prepaids and "global" prepaids like Hop Mobile tend to be cheaper still)

Choice of phones:  Good, but few higher-end phones -- but choice is basically limitless thanks to use of GSM

Customer service:  among the best

Data:  T-Mobile uses GPRS and EDGE. T-Mobile has not officially announced EDGE service anywhere, but EDGE is currently available in most parts of metro Atlanta.

• WAP/phone-based data:  OK; nothing to write home about
• PDA data:   Inexpensive and reliable, but a bit on the slow side unless you're in EDGE coverage; supports a wide range of devices including BlackBerry, Treo, Pocket PCs, and T-Mobile's Sidekick
• Tethered data:  Very inexpensive and reliable, but slow unless you're in EDGE coverage

Verizon Wireless

Claim to fame:  Network performance ("can you hear me now?")

Coverage:  Deteriorating in Atlanta; strong elsewhere in the US; strong rural coverage; very little Caribbean coverage

• Atlanta:  Deteriorating. :(  Verizon's coverage used to be the best around Atlanta, but Verizon's network took a nosedive starting in late November 2004 (probably because of a large influx of customers, causing the network to get oversold); even before that, Verizon had odd coverage issues in Sandy Springs, Dahlonega, and Jasper, places where even relatively weak carriers like Sprint work well
• Southeast:  generally the best; very poor coverage in Mobile, AL; a significant amount of coverage in KY, central and western AL, MS, and LA is analog and a  "tri-mode" phone is needed for maximum coverage in these areas
• National:  by far the best in the Northeast (although NYC has started to degrade like Atlanta has); rural coverage about on par with Sprint, although slightly more limited than it used to be with new "no-roaming" America's Choice plans
• Caribbean:  extremely limited coverage -- basically Puerto Rico, the USVI, and the Dominican Republic and nowhere else
• Rest of the world:  Verizon offers roaming with regular phones in fewer countries than Sprint, although is improving; offers roaming with regular phones in South Korea.  GSM roaming is available via a SIM-roaming plan as well as a a CDMA/GSM phone (Samsung A790); in my opinion, the GSM roaming plan is a better option as the A790 has some limitations and roaming with that phone is more expensive.

Choice of phones:  OK; Verizon phones are generally full-featured, but Verizon seems to have a fear of Bluetooth, and is not as open to activating "foreign" phones (those sold for other carriers) than they used to be

Customer service:  among the best

Data:  Verizon uses CDMA CSD and 1XRTT and offers EV-DO in an increasing number of cities, including Atlanta.  Verizon has far more gaps in data coverage than other carriers -- data services generally do not work when on other carriers, and Verizon lacks native coverage in a couple of major cities (most notably Oklahoma City) and many smaller towns where other carriers' data services work.

• WAP/phone-based data:  Poor; Verizon has placed too much emphasis on downloadable content (games and so on) and doesn't offer the kind of WAP content that other carriers offer, plus Verizon charges airtime for phone-based data usage (WAP, MMS, downloads), something no other carrier does except with some older phones.  As long as Verizon continues to charge airtime for phone-based data usage they will not be competitive in this area.
• PDA data:  Good, but expensive; significant gaps in data coverage compared to voice coverage
• Tethered data:  Very good and very fast, but expensive; significant gaps in data coverage compared to voice coverage

Originally created by Stanley Cline.
(reposted without permission, may be removed at any time)